


Arthur Morgan and the Foot in the Grave

by radicalskeletal



Series: By My Side, He Seemed To Me Like a Ghost [2]
Category: Red Dead Redemption
Genre: M/M, cowboy pining, spoilers for chapter 4 and up, this whole series is a really long escort mission lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 16:25:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17410262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radicalskeletal/pseuds/radicalskeletal
Summary: Albert had fallen asleep almost instantly. The cinders in the fire pit were just red enough to cast a dim glow on his face. He snuffled in his beard as he slept. Arthur considered him quietly, this man that had become more than everything.





	Arthur Morgan and the Foot in the Grave

Before they could go to Cholla Springs, Albert had to exchange his leased nag for a fresh one in Blackwater. Arthur privately felt the old girl would be glad to be rid of them. She hadn't been able to take Albert that far since their encounter with the bison that morning, and now she was dozing on the riverbank south of Bard's Crossing as her keeper fished, knee deep in the river. Arthur was pleased that Buell had be patient enough to pace himself next to her.

 

“I'll send the negatives while we're in town,” Albert volunteered. “I'm embarrassed to say we'll have to wait a few days until I can get a new horse. I'm a slave to the arrival of the wire transfer I'll get for the negatives, you see.”

 

Arthur squinted at him from the fireside on the shore. His sleeves were rolled up and his saddle was sprawled over his lap as he cleaned it. He wasn't sure how much he could tell Mason. He trusted the man to not have the ear of a Pinkerton, but that could change if he gave the wrong person an earful. Albert knew his name. Arthur didn't regret that, but he had to deal with it. “I won't show my face in Blackwater for long, Mr. Mason. Too many folks are happy to think they're rid of me. I'd hate to dash their hopes.”

 

Albert didn't respond for a bit, as he was focused on luring in a fish, slowly winding up the line. Arthur wondered where he had learned to fish. “I hardly think that I can steal away this poor beast to the desert.”

 

“You won't need to. We can take her back to Blackwater, but we can't linger.” Arthur lumbered to his feet and dusted himself off. “Catch us some dinner. I'll be back.” He took his lasso and slung a rifle over his back and walked up the embankment toward the road, leaving Albert to the fish.

 

Arthur couldn't help but hum to himself as he walked south, keeping the road on his right. The ride had exhausted him, but he was feeling lighter than he had since the mountain. He had never thought of himself as a particularly fortunate man, but maybe he'd been wrong. Death would have him before long and he had to face that, but he wasn't afraid of all that. What he was afraid of was meaninglessness.

 

He had been ready to die a real hero's death, if that was possible. Scatter his family on horseback. Send John away and hope that his sacrifice would let him grow up and be a man, and that would be that. He'd been fine with it. Better than holed up somewhere with a bloody mouth. He'd felt like a ghost ever since the doctor had told him what was wrong with him, but he'd gotten strength from God knew where when his way became clear.

 

Then he'd lived. A hermit named Hamish had found him unconscious in the sun. He couldn't remember much but flashes. Forced over a horse's back. Being looked after in a cramped, tidy cabin. Even through the pain in his body and his heart, he couldn't seem to die. He'd been cruel to Hamish for keeping him alive, that selfish idiot. He had been meant to die, and he'd roared at him so one night. Arthur felt that he would think himself a godawful sack of shit for the rest of his days if Hamish hadn't forgiven him for it. “I know battle scars when I see them,” he'd grunted one day.

 

Hamish had sheltered Arthur for two weeks. Time had been a sick, red haze for more than half of that. Hamish had talked at him as he had drifted, sharing war stories and spinning hunting yarns. On the eleventh day he'd been drawn out to sit on the dock with Hamish, and he told Hamish that he wasn't going to stay much longer. Hamish had gruffly admitted that he liked it that way, but he wanted Arthur to come back and say hello sometime, that he had to see how his work playing nursemaid had paid off. Arthur had offered him money for his trouble, and Hamish had refused. Arthur had told Hamish to not be a ass, that he had more money than he could spend even if he knew how. Hamish had told him that he'd push Arthur off the dock if he tried it again.

 

Arthur had wondered if he was fated to be something like Hamish and wait around to die, wanting to be alone but not wanting to be lonely.

 

It had all been for nothing, of course. Hamish had been gored by the biggest boar Arthur had ever seen before he'd put two bullets in the ugly pig's face. Arthur had gotten a horse, a gun, and then a backache from burying Hamish under the trees where he could see the lake. Then he'd left.

 

He'd taken Buell south for a while. He hadn't been planning anything but getting out of cougar territory. He'd been sure that if he thought anything more than the next step, he'd break. His mind was too frantic and full for plans. He felt less like a hunter and more like stalked prey on its last legs. He was so tired, and more than a little aimless. He kept himself alive out of habit. He hunted and stole and rode. Arthur found that these days red meat or coffee made him feel heavy and ill, and learned to find tea and stole a fishing rod from an empty homestead to feed himself lean fish meat. He quit his whiskey and cigarettes because they made his chest ache and his breath a bloody rattle.

 

Seeing Albert Mason had made him sure that he had truly outdone himself: passed half-mad and finished the job. Most of him had wanted to spur Buell and run, but he'd turned towards him and his light and got off his horse like the goddamned fool he was.

 

And now he was riding south with this man like a scarecrow, promising murder on any wanderer that looked at them wrong. As far as how to spend his last days went, it could be worse. He just hoped he could take Albert safely away before he woke up dead. One last job before he could rest, but first Albert needed a horse.

 

He searched the ground for tracks. He had caught signs for pronghorn and deer since making camp, but horses would be hard to come by here. He settled on his haunches in some bushes to wait. He was shamefully out of breath from his walk and wanted to conserve his energy before trying to tame a new horse for Albert.

 

He scrawled out a sketch of Albert squinting through his camera, burning with unshakable concentration for his work. He absentmindedly wondered what it would be like to be the focus of that regard and hatefully scolded himself for a lonely dimwit. He hadn't given his journal a proper update since before his would-be death, but he wasn't ready to put his thoughts of those days into writing yet.

 

The sun had set almost an hour before Arthur heard the horses. The heard was by the water, poking hopefully in the dry turf. Arthur slapped his journal shut and peered through his binoculars from his satchel. Three Morgans and a white Nokota. The Morgans wouldn't thrive in the heat of West Elizabeth, but the sturdy legs on the Nokota would take Albert far from danger in a hurry when found himself neck deep in trouble with the local wildlife. That man finding trouble was as unavoidable as it was secretly charming.

 

To be perfectly honest with himself, Arthur wasn't feeling up to taming her. His breath still clicked wetly in his chest like a warning. But the thought of Albert, happy with his gift and safe on her back when Arthur couldn't protect him anymore, made him get his feet back under him and trudge closer to the horses. There wasn't much he wouldn't do to look after that man.

 

The horses caught his scent before he would have liked. He called out to the Nokota with all the charm left in his spent bones, and she scrutinized him nervously. He soothed her with a sweetness that even Mary Beth would have envied until he could stroke her trembling neck, her herd leaving her to his mercy. Arthur bleakly wondered if this ride was going to break his neck and Albert would find him twisted up in the dirt. One more reason to leave him before long, Arthur thought regretfully. Better to leave him with memories of him alive—if not well—as long as he didn't have to see him dead and cold.

 

“Not gonna hurtcha, girl,” he hushed her. She whimpered and danced. She felt skittish and strong under his hand. “All kinds of folk been doubting me recently, girl. You ain't got to be one of them.”

 

As good a time as any to bust his ass, he supposed. He hoisted himself up and squeezed his calves under her belly as she whinnied and bucked. He grunted pleasantries in her ear, clinging to her neck desperately, cursing his lack of strength. She wheeled with a vengeance and Arthur hacked against his shoulder, winded from the scramble. “You don't want to kill me, girl. Nobody wants that now,” he wheezed.

 

After she exhausted herself trying to shake him, and he sung her praises and trotted her back towards camp. She'd be a good match for Albert. She had a quietness that might temper Albert's hungry ambition. He daydreamed about pleasing Albert with his gift. Thinking of Albert satisfied drove him to distraction. What a mess. Arthur decided for the hundredth time that he was a lovelorn clown not worth the gun on his back.

 

“Who's there?” Albert called into the darkness as Arthur pulled off the path toward him.

 

“Arthur,” Arthur groused as he pulled up next to the fire.

 

“Arthur!” Albert cheered. He had rolled his sleeves up to his elbows, and his forearms were slick with blood from the row of fish next to the fire that he'd evidently cleaned for dinner. He had a stripe of sweat down the neck of his shirt. He was smiling fearlessly. It reminded him of the streak of bravery he'd shown that morning, twisting Arthur to his whims. Arthur cursed himself for admiring his loveliness in the firelight.

 

“Not much of a noble steed, is she? But she'll carry you just fine.” Arthur couldn't help but smile at Albert's wide eyes as he took in his animal.

 

“Mr. Morgan, you certainly did not,” he breathed.

 

“I'm afraid I did. What's her name?”

 

For once, Albert seemed at a loss for words. All day he'd prattled at Arthur until he'd recalled how weak his walls were to Albert's light and joy. He'd always been soft to Albert's unfamiliar gentleness. Arthur remembered that until last night he'd thought he would never see him again, and felt immeasurably grateful, for the first time, that he had lived.

 

Albert stroked a hand down her neck. “She seems like a Temperance to me. She reminds me of my Aunt Temperance with all this white hair.” Albert chewed his lip and then looked at Arthur slyly. “Same face, too.”

 

Arthur barked a laugh and Albert grinned before grabbing his hand in a firm, warm shake. “Thank you, sir. I'm eternally in your debt. This must be the tenth time you've saved my skin. Thank you.”

 

Arthur's hand prickled and he felt heat climb up his neck. He'd never been so conscious of his ugly scars and calluses. “Don't thank me. You don't need that much saving, Mason. Reckon you wouldn't be half so much fun if you did. Now you can arrange to pick up the wire in Armadillo, and we leave Blackwater without the wait.” He didn't want to provide for Albert to a fault, but he wondered if he could convince Albert to take some of his money in Blackwater to buy a good set of tack. He wanted this money to go to a better use than rotting in his pocket. Even Hamish hadn't wanted anything to do with it when he'd offered something for his trouble.

 

Albert cooed over Temperance as Arthur dropped next to the fire with a wheeze. “No more horse breaking for me. You can get the next one.”

 

“As you wish. You're a real gentleman, Mr. Morgan.” Albert was looking like he'd been given the world. Arthur wondered if there was any end to this that didn't involve him destroying himself for Albert's happiness.

 

“Did I earn my dinner, or is that all for you?” he asked, jerking his chin at the row of fish.

 

“I'd say you've earned your share, sir. Your knife, if you please.”

 

Arthur handed it over after Albert gave his hands a swish in the water at he edge of the Dakota River. He watched as Albert slide a knife through the meat clumsily and begin to roast if over the fire. “Where did you learn to fish like that?”

 

Albert's eyes softened. “My father taught me. My one survival skill, you know. I never learned how to shoot or hunt or start a fire, but I can fish better than you might believe of a milksop like me. What a bleak outdoorsman I make.” He held the handle of the knife out to Morgan so he could eat the crisped fish off it. “We'd go up to a lodge outside of the city in the summer. Trout, that was our thing.”

 

Arthur wolfed down the fish and handed the knife back so Albert could make more. “Tell me, were you still trying to brown nose your way in with the local wildlife even then?”

 

Albert laughed, sharp and loud enough that Temperance jerked her head up from grazing, half-spooked. “Even then. Have you never seen the majesty of the common snapping turtle? They can live up to forty years.”

 

“That's all fine and well, but I don't think that will keep the turtle from taking your fingers for lunch if you get too close.”

 

Albert was trying very hard to not look amused as he cooked a fillet for Arthur. “I hardly imagine a man like yourself got to be as powerful as you are without getting in over your head now and then.”

 

“There's getting in over your head, and then there's trying to commune with Lemoyne alligators for a photograph. Nothing powerful about being a lizard's dinner. Or a wolf's. Or a coyote's.”

 

“Bugger off, catch your own blasted fish.” But he handed over the fillet just the same as Arthur snorted.

 

Albert asked him about Temperance as they ate. Arthur picked at the fish and told him about taming her. In the face of Albert's obvious admiration, he felt his neck heat up bashfully and hoped the dark would hide it. He busied himself packing away the leftover cooked fish in their saddlebags.

 

“You're a genius, sir.”

 

“I'm just a man who isn't afraid to get his hands dirty.”

 

“Sometimes I feel like such a fool around you, Mr. Morgan.”

 

“The only foolish thing about you is not knowing when to quit.”

 

“Guilty as charged, sir.” Albert cut his gaze away with a small smile and the tension eased.

 

What are you doing, dead man, Arthur thought to himself. He cleared his throat of the ominously wet burn and brought his hat low over his brow and set in to cleaning his guns. He didn't have much left, as they'd been lost in his girl's saddle when she'd been shot out from under him. Anything he'd had since had been bequeathed or stolen.

 

“Will you be getting anything in Blackwater?” Albert asked him.

 

“A new journal, I think. I don't know when the next time we'll see a stationary store will be once we leave,” Arthur grumbled.

 

“You write, Mr. Morgan?” Albert didn't sound surprised, which Arthur thought was strange, as most folks pegged him as an illiterate troublemaker, when only one of those things tended to be true.

 

“Just a little for trifling thoughts. Some deficient doodling.”

 

Albert's eyes shone with esteem and no small amount of hope. “You're an artist, sir?”

 

“No, I just scribble.” Arthur was beginning to regret opening his big mouth as he always did.

 

“You're definitely an artist. A creator. I wish you'd see your creativity for what it is.”

 

“The inferior scrawls of an idiot?”

 

“The talent of a craftsman.”

 

Arthur's mind rebuffed it immediately. “You're a smart man, Mr. Mason. But your estimation on the quality of my chicken scratch is a trumped up.”

 

“Maybe so. But I admire anyone who has taken the time to pursue an artistic adventure.” Albert was looking at him with unabashed and frankly embarrassing affection.

 

“Why don't you make yourself useful and set up that tent of yours? Show me some of that craftsmanship you talk up.”

 

Albert stood up and took a little bow, hand to his sternum. Arthur hid his smile and finished cleaning his guns and his saddle as Albert scuffled with the poles. Arthur ignored his threats of violence on the canvas as he thoughtfully worked.

 

Dutch had been a real artist. He could put his love on the paper and make you feel it. Arthur didn't know about any of that. He could see a thing and picture it perfectly later and put it down, thinking of the way it had made him feel. Dutch could put a damn photograph on a page. He'd learned a lot from Dutch and surpassed him in some ways, but this hadn't been one. He remembered Dutch sketching Mrs. Grimshaw once, and how she'd blushed prettily when he had brandished it at her. Arthur's heart ached as the betrayal and unfairness threatened to close his throat.

 

They groomed the three horses. Arthur watched Albert give Temperance her first brushing and smiled as she nudged him with her delicate nose. They feed the three oatcakes and let the embers of the campfire guide them to bed. Albert soothed a hand against his shoulder when Arthur had a coughing fit so fierce that tears had squeezed out the corners of his ruddy eyes.

 

The unfamiliar birds and the water dashing against the shore kept Arthur up. Albert had fallen asleep almost instantly. The cinders in the fire pit were just red enough to cast a dim glow on his face. He snuffled in his beard as he slept. Arthur considered him quietly, this man that had become more than everything. His last calling.

 

He slept fitfully and sketched Albert in the morning light that crept through the gashes in the tent canvas. He wondered if Albert would ask to keep it. He wondered what would happen to it if he kept it even after Arthur was gone. He wondered if Albert would ever make it back to New York.

 

His pencil seemed to track across the pages with more deference than ever before. There was responsibility in it now. We see him to the finish, Arthur decided. His surroundings muddied the same way they always did when he doodled. He thought of the first meeting under the pines south of Riggs Station and Albert glorifying the probability of being eaten by wild animals, so that's what he drew.

 

When he was finished, he blinked the fog out of his eyes and peered at his work, a spread of two pages. Arthur and Albert meeting in the grass. Albert with his hands on his hips, gazing in wonder at the clearing. Arthur, looking a little out of his element in Albert's company but healthy.

 

Arthur hissed a storm of curses under his breath but left his notebook open next to Albert's sleeping face as he pulled on his coat against the morning mist and went to the river to wash the sleep out of his mouth. At least Temperance hadn't cut and run in the night. She dozed shoulder to shoulder with Albert's leased horse.

 

Instead of stalking back in the tent and hiding his journal in the ashes of the fire, he sipped water from the river and looked at his map. With Albert on Temperance, they could make Blackwater that afternoon, and Albert could join him at camp in the plains that night. Then a day, give or take some meddling from Mason and his camera, until Cholla Springs. Then that should do it, it seemed.

 

Arthur tried not to think of Albert's horse throwing him off his back and down a ravine. Or Albert eating poisonous flora. Or dying of thirst in the sun. Or getting eaten alive by a big cat. Or any of the dense things Albert would have done a hundred times over without Arthur babysitting to keep him breathing. Albert had too much ambition to not do great things before he died, and Arthur wasn't going to be around for half of it. But if he was going to live long enough in New Austin to not get eaten by his bloodthirsty subjects, he'd need to learn to protect himself at least half as well as Arthur could.

 

“Mr. Morgan, this is an extraordinary likeness!”

 

Arthur wished he had let Temperance break his neck last night.

 

Albert was standing in front of the tent and looking down at Arthur's journal in his hands like a treasure. “This is excellent work. I'm astonished! It's hardly fair that you didn't tell me you're so skilled!”

 

Arthur felt like an idiot show off. He cursed himself. Of course showing Mason his journal hadn't been a gesture of friendship, it had been an attention seeking bungle.

 

“You must think I'm a talentless ass. Really, the way I went on last night about us being similar.” Mason ran a finger along the edge of the page tenderly. “But this is really something special.”

 

“I don't know if it's special as much as it is a waste of time,” Arthur grumbled, casting about for anything in the damn world to talk about but this. “Breakfast?”

 

Albert sat next to him on the grass. He finally looked away from the journal to meet Arthur's eyes. “That's exactly what my mother used to say about my own pictures. Or she did, until they started paying for our food when my father died. I'm just a simple annalist documenting what I see. This is fine work, Arthur.”

 

Arthur tucked his chin against his chest. He could feel the heat of his flush climbing from his neck to his cheeks. “Sometimes I worry you can't see past your own nose.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

Arthur peered at him calculatingly. The tension of their locked eyes sprung a fire in his gut as he counted the freckles on Albert's nose. He looked away when he lost his nerve. He was losing sight of what this was, like a lovesick idiot.

 

“You love your work. You're damn good at it, too. How long did it take for you to scrape together for that camera? You're bedeviled by that box. I don't understand the way you get lost in it, but that's the business of the likes of the folks in the Saint Denis art gallery, not dying tramps like me.”

 

Albert looked like he was about to disagree, but then froze as Arthur's words registered. “Ah. You know about that, do you? I hope you don't mind that I used your portrait, but you're a hard man to track down to negotiate that sort of thing with.”

 

Arthur laughed, then erupted in a coughing fit and turned away to spit. His whole body ached with every hoarse bark. Albert soothed a hand over his shoulder as he collected himself.

 

“I don't mind that. But I do mind you taking that tone with yourself. I'll thank you not to talk about my acquaintances like that.”

 

“I can only ask the same of you.” Albert's eyes smiled.

 

“I don't have to take this,” Arthur grumbled, and Albert laughed.

 

They rode for Blackwater in the midday sun, bellies full of their breakfast of fish and crackers from Arthur's satchel. Albert's leased horse cantered behind them as they loped west. In spite being at the beginning of a dubious journey, Arthur felt the kind of excitement he enjoyed only at the beginning of a trip into the unknown. 

He wondered if he could get Albert to New Austin without dying on him first. Despite himself, he felt only Albert's light and the blaze of a new purpose.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, you can find Albert's collection in the Saint Denis art gallery after you finish his quest line. You can also find an article in one of the newspapers about the success of his gallery in New York as well.
> 
> Really overwhelmed by the comments on the last one. I appreciate them all! <3


End file.
